From the very start of the guessing game over President Barack Obama’s first pick for the United States Supreme Court, a false choice has taken shape in the public debate.

Obama’s critics have suggested that if a Hispanic or a woman or — hold on to your seats — a Hispanic woman were selected, it would be because political pressure and symbolism trumped the naming of a better-qualified jurist. In other words, the president would have emphasized quotas over qualifications.

That jump to a conclusion overlooks a few key points.

First, the president proved through his Cabinet selections that he seeks well-qualified nominees with hopes that his picks — when viewed broadly — reflect the diversity of the nation. He stuck to that principle long enough to draw flak from Hispanics and other groups that felt snubbed for not winning more appointments in the new administration.

Second, is it really likely that the president, who once taught constitutional law, would choose someone who is not dedicated to the rule of law, especially after all of the ruckus that has been raised?

Also, in case some have not noticed, there are Hispanics who are qualified to serve on the high court. Much progress has been made since 1979, when Reynaldo G. Garza of Texas became the first Hispanic to serve on a U.S. Court of Appeals.

“There’s no compromising” of qualifications with regard to Hispanic candidates, said Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas), the first vice chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “We have highly qualified and competent Latinos ready, willing and able to assume a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The greater presence of Hispanics in the legal community, their political maturation and rapid population growth make what once seemed impossible now inevitable: Someday, sooner rather than later, there will be a Hispanic on the Supreme Court.

Those who doubt that qualifications are Obama’s overriding consideration point to his recent comments in which he listed a nominee’s “quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.”

Conservatives quickly decided that the E-word — “empathy” — was code for a liberal, a social engineer, or a politically partisan and activist minority or female candidate.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, wrote in The Washington Post that in the upcoming Senate nomination hearings, Republicans would try to learn if the nominee is one who “respects the Constitution or one who intends to rewrite it.” Sessions noted that only five justices are needed on decisions “potentially dictating huge changes to our nation’s economy, culture and law.”

But Obama’s critics also are playing politics with the Supreme Court opening because politics has always been a part of the process, especially when nominees were obviously picked because of their gender or race rather than their qualifications.

In 2005, President George W. Bush tapped White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, even though Miers was underqualified. Severe criticism about her lack of credentials forced her name to be withdrawn.

Justice Clarence Thomas was nominated by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 to succeed Justice Thurgood Marshall, the civil rights giant. Thomas, only the second African-American to serve on the Supreme Court, was appointed because he was the only black candidate who was ideologically opposite to Marshall and conservative enough.

In naming Thomas, Bush sought to placate the Republican Party’s base, disappointed by the appointment of Justice David Souter a year earlier.

Further back in history, presidents sought regional or religious representation, Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet recently wrote in POLITICO. “Westerners, for example, were thought to bring special insights to the court’s (then) many cases involving the allocating of water rights in the West,” Tushnet said. “The current academic jargon for this is that ‘many minds’ make for better decisions.”

Marshall and O’Connor — the first African-American and the first woman named to the court — are success stories. They showed how, all things being equal, their diverse backgrounds enhanced the court’s decisions.

In 1971, a decade before O’Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, she urged President Richard Nixon to select Arizona state Supreme Court Justice Lorna Lockwood for the court, according to a biography of O’Connor written by USA Today Supreme Court reporter Joan Biskupic. Nixon ignored the advice of O’Connor, who was then serving in the Arizona state Senate.

Reagan worked to narrow the gender gap in his 1980 presidential campaign by promising to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, and O’Connor became that appointee. By 1999, O’Connor’s leadership in a sexual harassment case at a Georgia school showed O’Connor “was boldly and broadly challenging gender injustices,” Biskupic wrote.

“Things really changed when we finally got a woman on the court,” said Gonzalez.

“All branches of our government should reflect what America looks like, even at the Supreme Court,” Gonzalez added. And that can be done without giving up qualifications for a diverse life experience.

Gebe Martinez is a longtime journalist in Washington and a frequent lecturer and commentator on the policy and politics of Capitol Hill.